History of the Global Student Leadership Program

The Global Students Leadership program was founded by Michaela Walsh, founder and former president of   Women’s World Banking. Its inception was in 1990 with the help of  “Women in Community Leadership” a program offered to Manhattanville College undergraduates. This was originally developed as a means for training women so as to level the ground between women and men all over the world in order to have equal opportunities between men and women.

Michaela Walsh and Susan Stehlik designed the program curriculum. It was supported by a number of individuals and organizations who have sponsored and catered for its smooth running, for instance Manhattanville College, UNDP, W.W.B and Carnegie Foundation of New York.

The program was first implemented in the summer of 2000, and was held at Manhattanville College. There were 28 women between the ages of 18 and 24 from 15 different Latin American countries who were selected from a pool of 100 candidates nominated by affiliates of Women’s World Banking, The Inter American Development Bank and local professors. The majority of these women did not know English and so were enrolled for the summer courses at ELI (the English Language Institute). This was successful as they graduated with action plans to be implemented in their countries.  Then in 2001 the group was diverse as there were 19 young women between the ages of 18 and 34 who had been selected from a pool nominated by affiliates of Women’s World Banking, United Nations Development Program, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Open Society Institute, local professors and community organizations.

In 2002 the plan had been that they include 5 former participants engaging as interns and one as a program coordinator. Thirty participants had already been chosen; however, following the September 11th tragedy in New York it became impossible to gain short-term student visas so the 2002 program was postponed.

GSL2003 involved 8 young women between 18-28 years from different parts of Africa and America. These young women developed the GSL Website and by the end of the program they were set to return home to implement their action plans and build on their shared experience through technology.

The 2004 Summer training was cancelled due to failure of obtaining visas to the USA however Michaela Walsh and President Berman visited Schools and Universities with which a Memorandum of Understandings were signed, strengthening GSL relationship and brought into play new partner schools

GSL2005 involved two GSL programs the first of its kind held in University of Dares Salaam in Tanzania with 26 participants male and female and professors too. The GSL 2005 summer program which just ended, involved 8 participants from Africa, America and Europe who by the end of the 5 weeks of an intensive training were ready to bring positive change to their communities through their commitment to implement their action plans.

 For the year 2006 we are hoping some of the former students help the sponsors identify potential candidates for the next summer and Africa training in Dar es Salaam, so as to have a diverse group of participants for both the Summer program at Manhattanville College and the mini GSL program in University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in Africa.